Ray Davies On World Cafe

In this session, we welcome the legendary frontman of The Kinks, Ray Davies, who is backed by The Jayhawks on his new solo album, Americana. One of the themes Davies writes about in this new batch of songs is his relationship with the United States. He says that when The Kinks first came to the U.S. as part of the British Invasion, they faced a backlash from some Americans. At one point they were banned from entering the country entirely. "One of the first things somebody said to me at the airport was, 'Are you a boy or a girl?'" Davies recalls. "And that was immigration. So we knew we were off to a bad start."

Hear the rest of that story and more in the player above.

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